Digitising 35mm negatives: Professional vs doing it myself

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AlDrag

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#302437 23-Nov-2022 13:37

I have shit loads of old negative Kodak gold 35mm strips from a camera. These are all from my childhood that I'd love to get digitised for myself and family. The negatives are about 30-25 years old, but have been stored well and as far as I can see, are in excellent condition, but I don't know much evidence from this besides just viewing it with the naked eye.

There seems to be 3 options I know of for getting them digitised: a professional film developer, buying a film scanner for myself or buying a macro lens for my existing Sony A6000 camera and taking raw photos.

- Professional: Getting them developed seems pretty expensive, but I think it'll be worth it if it's much higher quality than doing it myself with a Camera.
- Film Scanner: I've heard film scanners aren't that great in quality and quite slow? But I don't know much about them.
- Macro Camera Lens: A macro lens could be pricey, but I could find a second one maybe and then just resell it when I'm done. The main problem with this approach seems to be time spent, and time is priceless I guess.

Anyone been through this process before and have any recommendations?

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Wannabe Geek
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#3000481 23-Nov-2022 19:54

I am in the process of a similar exercise for my late Father in Law's collection of negatives 6x6, 6x9 35mm and 35mm slides.

I decided to do this myself afor 2 main reasons

1) These images were precious to the family, and I didn't want to risk them being lost or damaged by someone else whilst they were being digitised.
2) I thought it would be an interesting project as many of the images were of his numerous artworks.

I also wanted to catalogue them and tag them with a number of keywords so that they would be easier to locate later.

I bought a secondhand Epson v700 and started with that, but it was very slow and the sharpness was not what I was wanting.

I did a lot of online research and decided to go the digical camera with macro lens route - both for speed and the sharpness I could achieve.
It also gave me an excuse to own a good quaiity DSLR - which has been alot of fun.

The biggest challenge as the conversion of the negatives to positives (especially colour) but I discovered a great plugin for lightroom called Negative Lab Pro www.negativelabpro.com, which I cannot praise enough - for most of the negatives it is a 1 click solution.

I would suggest you consider you choice of camera carefully - I bought a Nikon D3400 (24MP) with a Tamron 90mm Macro lens -great camera and lens but not supported for tethering via lightroom.

I am therefore using Easy to use, free solution for complex camera control | digiCamControl which is opensource but takes a bit of work to get it working in my workflow.

I would highly recommed that you check what software support the different models of camera before you purchase one.

Important things to remember is the dust cleaning is vital and I do this before digitising to minimise work in lightroom.

I 3D printed a film scanner controlled by an arduino for 35mm strips which speedsa up the process considerably.

Remember it will be a labour of love if you decide to do it yourself. remember to sort through the negatives first to prioritise the ones you want to digitise.

Happy to help with any info / advice if you decide to go this way.

Cheers

Chris

mudguard

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#3000512 23-Nov-2022 21:33

Sheesh if it's anything like my family then there are thousands of negatives. I couldn't imagine doing that with a stills camera. I've had about twenty 8mm film reels done recently. To preserve them and see what's on them. We must have at least fifty of them and still more are turning up.
A place in Nelson does them.

This reel is almost fifty years old and the people in them haven't seen them since probably the seventies

AlDrag

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#3000612 23-Nov-2022 22:11

@cpcnz (Chris) your 2 reasons are the same reasons I was thinking of doing it myself. Except instead of interesting artworks, interesting see my childhood and sharing that with family in a much larger format than a tiny physical photo.

As I mentioned in my post, I have a Sony A6000 camera. Just need a macro lens for it. Funnily enough, I think we have an old Nikon DSLR as well haha I think a D3300. Was thinking of just giving that away. But the Sony is way better.

That 3D printed film scanner sounds bloody cool! I'm a Software Developer, so that stuff is interesting to me. How does it work? Does it automatically trigger the camera to take a pic and cycle the frames in the negative strips some how?

May have to pm you! Thanks :)

@mudguard Yea it could be an extremely long process haha. But there are a lot of duplicates I think which I can probably just ignore, but deduplicating itself is a long process.

I actually have a few VHS tapes I need to get digitised as well, but probably will go professional for that.

elpenguino

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#3000661 23-Nov-2022 22:32

If the negatives were uncut , this job would be much easier but if they're cut, someone will be doing a lot of loading. Nevertheless, a project like this might give some inspiration.

https://hackaday.com/2022/11/15/digitize-your-slide-deck-with-this-arduino-powered-slide-carousel/

Most of the posters in this thread are just like chimpanzees on MDMA, full of feelings of bonhomie, joy, and optimism. Fred99 8/4/21

MadEngineer

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#3000663 23-Nov-2022 22:36

This is something I need to do one day. My grandfather was a photographer and there’s a stack of pallets higher than a house full of negatives.

You're not on Atlantis anymore, Duncan Idaho.

AlDrag

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#3000664 23-Nov-2022 22:37

Luckily all uncut slides.

That's awesome! Unfortunately way out of my skill level haha. But definitely gives inspiration. Wish I had a 3D printer.

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AlDrag

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#3000665 23-Nov-2022 22:37

MadEngineer: This is something I need to do one day. My grandfather was a photographer and there’s a stack of pallets higher than a house full of negatives.

Sooner the better! Film ages right? Not sure what the shelf life is though.

jonb

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#3000706 24-Nov-2022 09:22

Something like this from AliExpress might help doing a few at a time: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004983291232.html

AlDrag

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#3000714 24-Nov-2022 09:32

jonb:

Something like this from AliExpress might help doing a few at a time: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004983291232.html

Oh wow that's bloody cool!! Thanks!

openmedia

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#3000726 24-Nov-2022 09:56

I'm using a Kodak film/negative scanner is picked up off Amazon. So far reasonably fast and some excellent results subject to the original negative or slide quality.

https://www.kodak.com/en/consumer/product/printing-scanning/film-scanners/scanza-digital-film-scanner

Generally known online as OpenMedia, now working for Red Hat APAC as a Technology Evangelist and Portfolio Architect. Still playing with MythTV and digital media on the side.

jonb

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#3000748 24-Nov-2022 10:07

Oh wow that's bloody cool!! Thanks!

This one is a better link - more reputable store and half the price https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003652375629.html

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AlDrag

284 posts

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#3000765 24-Nov-2022 10:44

openmedia:

I'm using a Kodak film/negative scanner is picked up off Amazon. So far reasonably fast and some excellent results subject to the original negative or slide quality.

https://www.kodak.com/en/consumer/product/printing-scanning/film-scanners/scanza-digital-film-scanner

A shame it only does JPEG though. Raw would be preferred, but maybe not essential.

Cheap price though :) Probably the same price as getting myself a macro lens alone.

AlDrag

284 posts

Ultimate Geek
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#3000785 24-Nov-2022 11:36

jonb:

Oh wow that's bloody cool!! Thanks!

This one is a better link - more reputable store and half the price https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003652375629.html